Tiptree
by Mythique
Summary: The dead don't always stay that way, especially to the one who killed them. This is the story of the Asari patient at Huerta Memorial, and the human girl whose fate continues to haunt her.


It was an odd sensation.

Arin T'roli _knew_ that the lights in Huerta Memorial's waiting rooms were too bright and that the conversations flowing around her were conducted in that strange hushed-but-able-to-be-heard-everywhere tone common to hospitals the galaxy over. Yet the certainty of that knowledge did nothing to alter Arin's private reality. The bright lights were dim. The glare from the clean, crisp surfaces and broad expanses of glass did not bother _her_ eyes, did not cause _her_ to squint or tilt her head at an odd angle. She could not understand the conversations going on around her. The voices were muted, or like the angry buzzing of those curiously endearing Earth creatures.

_Bees? Is that what they're called?_

Only the words of the Asari seated next to her managed to pierce the shroud of her self-imposed sensory deprivation. "… only speak to another Asari?" asked the nameless doctor. Arin could feel the doctor staring at her, _evaluating _her, looking for the cracks. Arin was used to that. She remained as she was; sitting perfectly still and staring out the window as if the solution to all her problems lay just outside, underneath the Citadel's artificial sky.

It wasn't so much that she wanted an Asari doctor; it was more of a need to avoid the _human _doctors. Her first doctors had been human, and how could she even look at another human after what had just happened? What she had seen, what she had _done _on… on…

_Tiptree._

As if to mock her, a red-haired human woman in purple customized armour walked past. A distant part of Arin's brain recognized the woman as Commander Octavia Shepard.

"_My brother's a pilot. He flies the _Normandy, _the best ship in the whole Alliance! He works with Commander Shepard! COMMANDER SHEPARD!"_

Arin jerks herself away from the memory and her eyes away from the human. She calms herself down by observing the room around her. She checks for exit points, notices the lack of security guards, looks for cover and vantage points. She studies the people around her… _not _the humans… never the humans. One person always draws her attention; a Drell. He is always in the same place, across the room from her, in front of the window. He mostly sits and stares out the window, as Arin does, but sometimes he shadow boxes.

He is graceful and skilled, and Arin can tell he is a soldier, or perhaps an assassin. Graceful… well, until the coughing wracks his body and he collapses, body twitching, into his seat, and the nurses come running, forcing Arin's attention away.

Kepral syndrome… _poor bastard._

He is not shadow boxing today. Commander Shepard is talking to him and holding his hand. Arin thinks the human may be crying. Human. Arin brings her eyes back to the window. Belatedly, she realizes that the doctor has asked her something. In a dead voice, Anna asks her to repeat the question.

Oh. She wants to know about Tiptree.

Tiptree: a pretty little human colony, mainly agricultural. Well, it _was _a pretty little colony. Not anymore. Now it was a Reaper infested ruin. If they were lucky, maybe a few of the colonists had survived and were hiding out somewhere, waiting for a second rescue attempt.

Maybe.

If they were lucky.

_At least we saved some of the kids, _Arin thought, remembering the shuttles full of screaming children they'd hurried off to the Salarians, praying that the goddess would see them safely past the Reapers.

Suddenly, the image of the one child she hadn't been able to save appeared before her, shadowy and vague, her face accusatory.

_Hilary._

Arin found herself telling the doctor about the human child, the pretty girl on the cusp of becoming a beautiful young woman. She had dark brown hair tied up in pigtails and a faint dusting of freckles across the bridge of her nose. Her green eyes were full of mischief, and her smile was entirely too innocent to be believed. As she filled in the details, the apparition in front of Arin seemed to solidify.

_She wants to be a pilot, just like the brother she adores. She will save the galaxy and have many grand adventures, like her idol, Commander Shepard. She is kind. She offers Arin some food and a hot shower._

The injuries became clearer; the bruises and the cuts, the small puncture wounds on both shoulders and the scratch down her left cheek, the broken fingers. Her skin was pale and covered with blood and dirt.

_There's so much blood. She is whimpering in pain, her eyes half open and full of tears. Her breathing is frantic. Arin holds her, careful of the girl's broken limb, and tries to comfort her as she runs for safety. It isn't working too well, the child is calling for her father, her brother, but Arin is a commando, not a matron, damn it! She can praise the way the girl had fought, but she can not soothe the pain of battle._

The doctor said something, probably telling her not to blame herself, that terrible things happen in times of war. Arin was not a bad person, she was a soldier, and soldiers often had to make hard choices. Arin snorted and then winced as her own personal ghost's neck twisted sharply. Her head hung unnaturally to one side and the look on the ghost girl's face changed from accusatory to betrayed.

_Nothing would quieten the girl. Arin is at her wits' end. It's cold, it has started to rain, and, not too far away, she can hear the Reapers and her indoctrinated sisters moving over the terrain. Arin has hidden herself and the girl in an old, half-destroyed storage facility. They are covered in metal roofing and dirt. She has done what she can, but without silence, there is no way to avoid detection. Her fingers twitch as the girl again calls out for her family. The Reapers are so close! The girl looks at her with fear in her eyes… Arin knows what she has to do. Fighting back a sob, her hands drift to the girl's vulnerable neck…_

The doctor asked for a name. Arin hesitated. She felt that she had already said too much, that she had already shifted too much of the burden from her shoulders. The burden was hers to carry, no one else's. She was afraid, afraid that to name the girl would be to make her real, and then Arin would no longer be able to deny her existence. No longer would Arin be able to claim that the girl was a figment of her traumatized mind; a symbol of all the people Arin had failed on Tiptree, instead of an actual person that she had betrayed in the worst possible way.

Ghost girl glared at Arin, challenging her. Arin let out a ragged breath.

_Her name is Hilary. She is fifteen years old. _

"Hilary," Arin whispers, "her name was Hilary."

Hilary's ghost smiled at Arin, but it was not a happy smile. It was wicked. Malicious. A thing of evil. She reached out a bloodied hand and beckoned to Arin. Her eyes were no longer full of fear. Arin shuddered as Hilary seemed to say to her, "You know what you have to do."

Arin took a deep breath. Indeed, she knew _exactly _what needed to be done to make things right, to make things better, to let Hilary rest in peace. For the first time she looked directly into her doctor's eyes.

"Can I have a gun?"

* * *

**AN – **this story is based on the conversation Shepard overhears between two Asari at the hospital. It wasn't until my third play through that I heard the whole conversation. When I realized that the girl the Asari was talking about was Joker's sister I really wished I hadn't heard it all. It was a real bummer, especially after learning that the Asari you persuade to marry the poetic krogan in ME2 ends up a widow in ME3. And that poor Quarian kid who loses his mother in ME2 and then his dad in ME3. It was like BioWare was beating us with the misery stick.


End file.
